Quick Draw Rick McGraw

[legendkiller1979]

Rick McGraw is a name that the majority of the people reading this are not going to recognize. The truth is that he really didn't do anything memorable. In fact, probably the only two things anyone could mention about him are his appearance on Piper's Pit and the match he had with Roddy the following week. Sadly these were his last two appearances before his death. In fact, his match with Piper was shown on TV on tape delay the day after he passed away. It was speculated at the time that Roddy contributed to his death because he "beat him so severely". This was not the case at all.

I bring him up because he passed away 30 years ago today. This may seem insignificant to most fans compared to other wrestlers' deaths. For me, his death seems among the saddest because it could be seen a mile away. If you have read Bret Hart's book, he talks about Rick sitting down to dinner, swallowing a handful of pills, and passing out in his dinner on a nightly basis. I wouldn't doubt that he took steroids as well. He wasn't very tall but he had a great physique. It seems impossible to think that this could happen on a daily basis in front of your peers and under the watchful eye of a company the size of the WWF. To be fair, he may have been offered help. I have tried to find the answer to this question with no success. It seems that the train was so far off the tracks, that people just watched it happen.

The way he died is different as well. There have been several wrestlers who have died in various ways over the years. There have been drug overdoses, suicides, guys whose bodies just gave out from the years of abuse. I guess Rick falls into the last category, but it seems incredible that he abused his body so much that he died at 30. The most recent tragedy that is the closest to Ricks situation is Eddie Guerrero. His body gave out as well at a young age and I remember hearing that he didn't take very good care of himself either. But Eddie wasn't as nearly as out of control as Rick's. I'm not writing this to cast blame on anyone. I noticed that today was the anniversary of his passing. It just seems so sad that he died the way he did so young and he was never able to get the help he so clearly needed.

 

[jpickens]

He was one one of those guys with potential but threw it all away due to destructive behavior what a shame he could have been a big star once he left the WWF.

 

[filthyanimalz]

In 1993, McMahon was indicted in federal court after a steroid controversy engulfed the promotion and thus temporarily ceded control of the WWF to wife Linda.[112] The case went to trial in 1994, where McMahon was accused of distributing steroids to his wrestlers.[113] One notable prosecution witness was Kevin Wacholz, who had wrestled for the company in 1992 as "Nailz" and who had been fired after a violent confrontation with McMahon. Wacholz testified that McMahon had ordered him to use steroids, but his credibility was called into question during his testimony as he made it clear he "hated" McMahon.[114][115] The prosecution's intended star witness was Hulk Hogan, but this proved to backfire on the prosecution when Hogan testified that McMahon never told him to take nor tried to sell him steroids. McMahon himself testified that he had taken steroids during the 1980s. ENOUGH SAID.

 

[Messiah]

Someone called me Quick Draw McGraw the other day.. Didn't realize it's an actual person.

 

[HeyYo]

Hey guys. I am old enough to remember Rick McGraw from his days in the WWF. He was paired with Arnold Skaaland as his manager. He was always tagged with the underdog stigma due to his short size but as someone has mentioned previously, he had a bodybuilder's physique which was quite rare in the very early 1980's.
McGraw formed a tag team with Steve Travis and the team was called The Carolina Connection. They had minimal success and the team didn't last long. His REAL connection to fame was in a match with Killer Khan where Khan broke his neck on a back suplex where McGraw landed on his head on a televised match. At the time, Khan was feuding with Andre the Giant and supposedly broke his leg.
I, personally, met Rick McGraw when the WWF came into my hometown around 1981. He was hanging around the stands in a small venue and fans could just go up to him and converse. He was a very nice man. His passing really saddened me because of his likeability underdog status.

 

[Makaveli31]

I believe he was one the first guys whose bodies gave out from the abuse of prescription drugs, steroids and who knows what else. I can't remember too many guys dropping dead in the mid '80's and they would eventually do in the late 90's and 2000's. The amount he was taking must have been staggering to have his heart give out at 30 years old!! Most guys at the very least make it 40!!

Like you mentioned, it was a slow case of suicide. I believed no one intervened because it was probably so prevalent in the 80's and '90s that he was just doing what everyone else was doing. It was the norm back then. Mountains of cocaine, hand fulls of prescription pills, vials upon vials of steroids hell even Vince was doing it back in the 80's!!

People just didn't know the consequences back then. It was a big party. The WWF was a full oiled machine running 365 days a year. So I doubt there was very much of a "watchful" eye. It wasn't until Duggan/Sheik made national news that Vince starting testing for cocaine ONLY because it could've ruined Vince.

But Vince HAD to know. Hell his top star, Shawn Michaels was basically a functioning drug addict for 10 years along with guys like Scott Hall and Sean Waltman. Triple H, a top exec now, tells stories of going to Shawn's room and wondering if he was going to find a dead body. To me ,that's unfathomable, but these are technically "grown men" and you can't tell them what to do.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

It's a shame that the only knowledge I have of Rick McGraw is what an earlier poster said, about the quote from Bret Hart's autobiography where he'd see McGraw pass out at the dining table night after night due to his drug problems. I know that was the culture at the time, with cocaine, pills and steroids being rampant, but it's still shocking to me that noone tried to intervene when it was clear one of their colleagues/employees had serious issues.

It wasn't just McGraw though. Bret mentions that before a match with the LOD, Hawk took a handful of pills and was basically asleep on the ring apron. How could the company allow wrestlers to go out there and risk their opponents safety by performing moves while being off their heads on drugs?

Insane. It's amazing that no-one was killed in the ring by a high-as-fuck wrestler.

 

[stingray11214]

Hey guys. I am old enough to remember Rick McGraw from his days in the WWF. He was paired with Arnold Skaaland as his manager. He was always tagged with the underdog stigma due to his short size but as someone has mentioned previously, he had a bodybuilder's physique which was quite rare in the very early 1980's.
McGraw formed a tag team with Steve Travis and the team was called The Carolina Connection. They had minimal success and the team didn't last long. His REAL connection to fame was in a match with Killer Khan where Khan broke his neck on a back suplex where McGraw landed on his head on a televised match. At the time, Khan was feuding with Andre the Giant and supposedly broke his leg.
I, personally, met Rick McGraw when the WWF came into my hometown around 1981. He was hanging around the stands in a small venue and fans could just go up to him and converse. He was a very nice man. His passing really saddened me because of his likeability underdog status.

I, too, remember Rick McGraw. I remember watching Championship Wrestling one Saturday night as a boy, and I remember McGraw having a match with Killer Khan. He was making Khan look like a fool until Khan nailed McGraw with such a ferocious back body drop in which McGraw landed weird. I remember Vince McMahon yelling in the mic "I would not be surprised if he broke his neck"" That was how savage that move was. Miraculously, McGraw finished the match, and he would leave the territory. He was a very talented individual who died too young. Sad.

It's a shame that the only knowledge I have of Rick McGraw is what an earlier poster said, about the quote from Bret Hart's autobiography where he'd see McGraw pass out at the dining table night after night due to his drug problems. I know that was the culture at the time, with cocaine, pills and steroids being rampant, but it's still shocking to me that noone tried to intervene when it was clear one of their colleagues/employees had serious issues.

It wasn't just McGraw though. Bret mentions that before a match with the LOD, Hawk took a handful of pills and was basically asleep on the ring apron. How could the company allow wrestlers to go out there and risk their opponents safety by performing moves while being off their heads on drugs?

Insane. It's amazing that no-one was killed in the ring by a high-as-fuck wrestler.

Nobody was going to cross a promoter in those days. You got blacklisted for anything back then. Hell, Mr. Wrestling won the Southern Tag Team straps 2 weeks after that infamous plane crash with Ric Flair and Johnny Valentine. He has several broken ribs, a fractured disc and a broken collarbone. He said he HAD to wrestle because he could never explain away why he was flaying with heels Flair and Valentine, a near fatal faux pas back in the day. And, the fact that most barely got a handshake and a hot dog for their efforts, no way was anyone going to drop out of a card. So, they used whatever they could to mask the pain.

 

[rmp0012002]

I didn't start following wrestling until after Rick broke his neck but was always a fan of his. He returned after his neck injury and that's when he teamed with Travis then Andre. He was also part of the New York Dolls with Dream Machine in Memphis.
With the schedule these guys were forced to work they all were on something to kill the pain or to just keep going. McGraw was just a heavy abuser of muscle relaxers but eventually it effects your heart. I think Eddie Gilbert and Tommy Rogers passed the same way but used them to numb the daily pain.